Shall I worry ... or just get a lighted palm sign out front!

So the other day little man and I are in the car driving to school. I remember 4 from the girls…it was exhausting…not because of the running around as much as the endless questions in the car on the way to go somewhere.

I suppose that I should be thankful that I have inquisitive children…it is supposed to be a sign of intelligence…Yeah…the fact that they are intelligent enough to know that they are driving us slowly into a crazy stupor with each question they add to our already surrendering brain…

So amidst answering the questions about why there are colors, where is Maine, is it on Mars (I will admit I did pause on that one…) does the grass get painted green in the summer and if not then why is it always green…there was the rather simplistic question: “Mom, what is medium?”

AH HA, an easy one I thought to myself, (clearly forgetting that we are dealing with Henry here.)

“Well Henry, some things are really big, and that is Large. Some things are really little and that is small…then there are the in-between things, and those are medium.” I was pretty proud of how concise that answer was…

There was a long pause in the back seat…

“No, I think a Medium can see into the future”

Huh…didn’t see that one coming!

A Great Reminder

Sometimes we're so concerned about giving our children what we never had growing up, we neglect to give them what we did have growing up. ~James Dobson

This was the quote at the end of a great post by a fellow blogger...I truly appreciated the message and figured you all would too!

Check it out at Achorn Farm We probably could all stand a little reminding....

Thanks!

A Quicky

So here we are the end of September and I have so many things I could have written about...and didn't. SIGH. Yesterday was my husband’s birthday and he took a few hours to come home early and be with the family.

This was really nice; if I were him I would have opted for more overtime!

We were going to walk to the bus stop to get my 3rd grader off the bus and surprise her with her daddy being home. Henry wanted to stay at the house with my eldest.

When we left the house we didn’t even get to the end of the drive when we heard a shriek of terror filter out of the windows… by the time we got to the end of the driveway, Henry was flying out of the house screaming “DON’T LEAVE ME!!!!!”
(These are the times that I am thankful we don’t have many neighbors.)

But the sight of Henry flying out of the house, running past us, and starting down the street…in his underwear and a button down shirt, was something to behold. (We are talking tighty-whitey Lightening McQueen underwear!)

Of course being the sensitive soul that he is…My husband started yelling after him “woooohooo I can see your underwear, Hey Lightening McQueen Biscuits…where are you going…”

I could have told him how that was going to end…Henry, who gets embarrassed so easily yelled “Nooooo it’s NOT FUNNY…” and started running back toward the house. Thankfully my eldest knew enough to bring his shorts out side so I could put them on him and stop the underwear hysteria. By the time the bus came, all was well…and clothed…Ahhh a day in the life of a boy.

scenes from the garden

I never did much of that this year, I guess because mother nature took a beating on my garden and to be honest I was very thankful that I was not a settler, because I have a feeling I would have ended up eating my hand off.

Even our zuccini and squash bit the dust with only 4 jars of pickles having been made. But I had plenty of beans that I put up. My inlaws bootlegged some Northern Neck tomatoes to me in August so i was able to put up salsa, sauce and bruccetta...But alas, my sister will have plenty of dilly beans to hide from us...

One of our new successes was the pole Limas (below) they were the best tasting limas and prettiest I have ever had...I am growing twice as many next year!



And as always, being a gardener in the fall, I have grand ideas for the following year, such as putting plexi glass over my apple trees to keep the damn deer away...(not really, but after only getting 10 apples as opposed to my prolific harvest last year I am under some serious research!) And perhaps a garden Fairy to stave off too much rain, and encourage bugs to disappear...

I guess our other big success...I got beautiful sweet potatoes this year out of only 4 plants... so next year we are growing more...we eat them like candy in this house, so it makes sense.

So I am putting my gloves away for the winter, and starting to dream of a perfect spring to plant...already!

Camping Pie Style

For those of you who have followed my blog for any amount of time, may have reason to notice, than many of the “plans” I make end up in a debacle…I’m just sayin’

All summer we had been planning to go camping with my sister and some mutual friends with all the kids. We finally found a weekend, made our reservations, and looked forward to it.

Things looked gloomy for June and July, but then August hit, and finally the ark landed on dry ground and we thought for sure we were in luck. Beautiful weather…I even got a cucumber or two…Then…the weekend we were supposed to go camping…

A flurry of Facebook activity between the families let us know that Hurricane Dannyboy was coming for us, on the weekend we were supposed to go…OF COURSE IT WAS.

Half bailed, but my sister, my self and one other family felt the need to tempt fate and tough it out through a hurricane.

Friday was beautiful we drove up with all sorts of plans, set up our campsites which looked something akin to the Fort Knox of tarps, thanks to our superhero “Kit Tarpington” who climbed trees, scaled rocks and teeter tottered on picnic tables to hang tarps over our tents to assure us for our hurricane bound night.

And you know, setting up for 5 hours made sense when we were laughing, having a margarita, and the sun was shining on our backs.

However, what we failed to have the insight to see, was on the inside of our over confident trailblazing selves, was the overwhelming desire to be dry, and not have whining children in the rain.

As the hurricane came in, and we checked the forecast online, and all we saw was a mass of green for the next 12 hours, we decided to pack it in…

The 5 hours of setting up in the sun seemed fun, now, in the driving rain and gusting winds, trying to figure out how to get those knots undone while hanging by one fingernail from the branch of a tree and eating bark…not so much.

To add insult to injury, to wake up this morning, to sopping tents that have to be spread out all over the lawn to dry in the BLAZING BEAUTIFUL SUNNY BLUE SKIES, kind of makes me want to say some things I cannot post.

Pies law: If you plan it, it will be a debacle…I’m just sayin’

Blue Belly Button...

There are days where I just look at Henry and think to myself..."REALLY?"

I am just curious what makes someone sit in all sincerity and think....gee I think I will color my belly button blue...

This was a week ago...he has been swimming in pools, had baths, been in the ocean even, and STILL HAS A BLUE BELLY BUTTON... which as you can see, he is quite proud of!

An Unhealthy Obsession

Ok so I am writing this from the confines of a hospital room...actually I will later be typing this off of a piece of paper and trying to read my scratch, but you get the point.

No serious worries yet, but my eldest daughter is here for an ultrasound to make sure that her appendix has not decided to bail ship. So while I am sitting here in the waiting room which undoubtedly will be for years, waiting for this all to happen I thought I would talk about my newest, greatest obsession.

Drover's Run.

I am not one to get obsessed with TV shows...Ok that is a lie, every now and then one will be good enough for me to get into...Veronica Mars, Six Feet Under. You know the kind that you kind of think you know these people, and you can't wait to see them again? (Yeah, I am sounding scary and unstable...)

At any rate, my sister got me hooked on an Australian show called McLeods Daughters. My husband and brother-in-law could arguably say that we have an obsession with this because we are similar to the sisters in the show, which is true. They could also arguably say that we need to remember we are NOT Australian ranchers and that the use of “Right-O” and “Bloake” (I told you more on that later) probably make us kin to the “Trekkies” that are spouting of sentences in Clingon.

Between the sister thing, the Aussie lingo, the mad desire to be a farmer, I couldn’t say exactly what it is, but I am hooked, and starting to wonder about my sanity.

I got my mother in law hooked while she was here, re-watching some of season one with her. You know, bring everyone down with you I guess! I started to question myself because the first few are a little cheesy…but then I fell in love with the cows, and sheep drenching, hot helicopter Alex, the being able to vicariously live through my computer screen. (My mother in law had to sign up for Netflix before she left so she could keep watching! HA)

My husband is quite satisfied since he has unlimited time with the Red Sox now, because I curl up in a chair with the computer and watch my McLeods before bed.

My eldest rolls her eyes and say “Oh MOOOOOOOOMMMMM” in the way that only a teenager can belittle you, every time she hears the: “Previously on McLeod’s Daughters”

But hey, I could start my day with worse things. If a cup-a and an Australian Ranchopera start my day with my dream of someday having my own farm…well, I call that a daily reminder of my goal…and I am pretty sure that Anthony Robbins would be cool with it. LOL.